(UPDATED) Cases of coronavirus infection in the country continued to increase by at least 200 a day as the Department of Health (DOH) reported 208 new cases Sunday, May 17.
This brought the total case count to 12,513 as of 4 p.m. Sunday.
The agency also reported seven additional deaths, raising the death toll to 824, and 74 more patients who have recovered, bringing the number of recoveries to 2,635.
DOH Secretary Francisco Duque III, in a Twitter post Saturday, said the country's overall capacity to manage and admit coronavirus disease (Covid-19) patients is still sufficient.
He cited a DOH report which said that as of May 15, there were still a total of 8,372 ward, isolation and intensive care unit (ICU) beds for Covid-19 patients in hospitals across the country.
Of the 13,456 total capacity, 5,084 were occupied as of May 15, broken down as follows, 947 ward beds, 3,668 isolation beds and 469 ICU beds.
Available then were 1,748 ward beds, 5,776 isolation beds and 848 beds.
There were also 1,578 ventilators available since only 375 were being used as of May 15.
In the barangays, local isolation and general treatment areas for Covid-19 cases (Ligtas Covid centers) offer a total of 44,075 beds while the Mega Ligtas Covid-19 facilities run by the national government have a total of 1,348 beds.
As of May 14, the 30 accredited molecular laboratories in the country still had 899,564 RT-PCR (reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction) test kits available.
The 30 laboratories conducted a total of 11,508 tests on May 14, surpassing the 8,000 per day target. (MVI/VoxPop Philippines)